


A Flight Across a Calm, Dark Sea

by Oshun



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:30:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshun/pseuds/Oshun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their journey to the island of Kyros, Alec gets sick and Richard takes care of him.</p><p>Beta: Just Ann Now. Thank you, Ann. I would have settled for much less without your comments. Thanks also to the writers at the Lizard Council for reading.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Flight Across a Calm, Dark Sea

“How much longer before we reach Kyros?” Alec asked. If one did not know the swordsman and the duke, Alec's tone might have indicated that he believed Richard had done him unconscionable harm.

Richard smiled. He knelt beside their bunk and stroked the tangled hair from Alec’s face. With his mind’s eye, he could see the auburn highlights of his hair and the glint of annoyance in his eyes. “Depends upon the weather, the wind. Perhaps another week, maybe less.”

Alec bolted upright, grabbed the conveniently placed basin, and retched and heaved as Richard held his hair away from his face, but nothing came up. Richard forced him to take a mouthful of water and spit it out. He bathed the cold sweat off Alec’s face.

“The surgeon said if you could only relax a bit, it might help the discomfort pass. He thinks that you should consider coming aloft. Fresh air can make it easier also. There is a light breeze, but the sea is not rough today. Would be a perfect time to try.”

Alec, snarled, “Why aren’t you sick?”

“Truly, I cannot say. I’ve asked. No one seems to know why it upsets some people more than others.”

Richard had been only mildly affected, and that for less than a day, while Alec had lain flat on his back in voluble wretchedness for the last three days. The ship’s surgeon had informed Richard that the uneven, pitching motion of the vessel exacerbated Alec’s discomfort. The physician’s latest advice was to suggest that Richard try to give Alec ginger tea and then compel him to come up onto the deck where the clean salt air could blow onto his face.

“Wait here. I'll be right back.”

“Where could I possibly go?” Alec groused. “I’m almost dead.”

Richard returned shortly with a cup of ginger tea. “Drink this.”

“What is it?” Alec asked, with appalled mistrust.

“Do you honestly think I would poison you?” Richard laughed.

“You really should. You ought to put me out of my misery,” Alec bitterly complained.

“Not a chance. Now drink this and try to behave yourself.”

Richard finally succeeded in coaxing Alec to leave the close, stale air of their cabin and come aloft. He led him to the side of the ship and stood behind him, placing Alec’s hands on the rail and covering them with his own. Although Richard could not see the waves, he heard and felt their rhythmic thumping against the keel. He loved listening to what the sailors had told him were the sighs of ropes stretching, the creaking of the rigging, and the occasional snap of a canvas sail.

“Can you see the horizon?” Richard asked.

“I suppose so.”

“Find a spot and fix upon it. Where the darker blue of the water meets that of the sky.”

“The water isn’t blue. It’s blackish and the sky is a grayish white.”

Richard laughed. “Ah, you have me at a disadvantage. You can argue black is white and I’ll never be able to contradict you. Find the horizon, Alec, and stare at it.”

“I can feel you smirking,” Alec said. His aristocratic drawl grew heavier, as if he sensed how his accent, so characteristic of the nobility of the Hill, aroused Richard. In all their years together, Richard had never admitted that to him, but there were times he wondered if Alec had always known.

“And I can hear the pout on your lovely mouth, my lord." Richard taunted him with the honorific, but Alec didn't take the bait. "Don’t look down. Keep your eyes on the horizon. Breathe with me. Can you feel my breathing?”

“That’s not all I can feel with you pressed up against me like that.” Alec’s petulant tone had already begun to sound more difficult to maintain.

“I assure you it was not intentional. Ignore it. Just breathe with me.”

Alec wriggled his backside against Richard. “You’re smirking again.”

Canting his rear into him once more, Alec raised himself up onto his toes and slid back down. “Richard . . . I think I’m feeling better already. Let’s go below now.”

“Not likely. You are not going anywhere until you can tell me that you’re hungry. You must be starving. You usually eat like a horse.” He shifted his hands from the top of Alec’s and captured his bony wrists in a tight grip.

“Oh, Richard. I can’t eat.” Alec released a deep, long-suffering sigh, before whispering, with another kind of hunger in his voice, “What else was it that you said I had to do before we can go back to our cabin?”

“That’s the spirit,” Richard said, pushing Alec more firmly against the side of the ship. “Look at the horizon and breathe along with me.”

The tense muscles of Alec’s lean back softened and molded themselves against Richard’s chest. He relented, permitting himself to inhale and exhale in tandem with Richard.

“Recite a poem for me, Richard,” Alec demanded, his husky voice at last tender. “You know all the old poems. There must be one about the sea or traveling.”

“Hmmm,” Richard said. “I am sure there are many. How about this?

'Their ship cut through a calm, dark sea,  
Leaving fair dreams and foul deeds behind.  
The lovers’ flight promised to be,  
An escape from that benighted time.'

”Do you like that one?” Richard murmured against Alec’s ear.

Alec shrugged off a shiver, before he snapped, “Well, it’s very nice. But what’s the rest of it?”

“I don’t remember the rest.”

Alec moved his long thighs against Richard again, his voice lifting doubtfully, yet insistent as always. “Are you lying? It sounds to me like the beginning of a long tale and a hopelessly tragic one at that.”

“You’re probably right. But I honestly do not remember what comes next. Don’t be so superstitious.”

“Try to think. I want to hear the rest of the verses.”

Richard didn’t resist when Alec wrestled free of his grasp, turned to wrap his arms around him, and gave him a dry, feather-soft kiss, filled with promise.

“The swordsman rescued his one true love,  
The rogue that some called prince and others madman.  
He fled with him to an isle of bees and honey and thyme.  
There they lived out their lives, ne’er to be parted again.”

“Richard! That’s not part of any story. You made it up just now.”

“I admit it. But we could make it true.”

 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤


End file.
